Emissaries and campaigns are busy collecting the 5-point text size asterisks used to denote where their information comes from for future mail and television attack ads that we’ll all surely be tired of hearing about by the time November rolls around.
This week saw two such collection projects hit the media as “fact checks,” hitting both Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron over splinters of their campaign talking points.
The Republican Party of Kentucky focused on loosening Beshear’s economic talking points as an article from the Louisville Courier-Journal was released late this week fact-checking the “record number of Kentuckians employed,” under Gov. Beshear.
The article points to Beshear using a “total count of workers employed,” which can double count Kentuckians with multiple jobs. Preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics contradict that number Beshear touts, with fewer than 2 million Kentuckians employed – which would not be a record.
“The Governor either doesn’t understand the numbers or purposely misled the public and the media,” said RPK spokesman and Cameron for Governor surrogate Sean Southard. “He can try to manipulate the data all day long, but it won’t change this fact: there are fewer people employed today than the day he took office. If the Governor understood the number, he should explain why he thinks needing an extra job to make ends meet in the Biden-Beshear economy is worth celebrating.”
Editor’s note: It’s very common during gubernatorial campaigns for the opposition party to attack employment numbers, both sides do it depending on who holds office. The brass tacks are a set of numbers that can “fall off” of these reports – people who are longer seeking work or are part of the labor force. Statistically, people no longer counted in the labor force can artificially inflate the total number of people employed.
KDP: Cameron Takes Credit for Beshear Opiate Lawsuits
The Kentucky Democratic Party seeks to set the record straight as Attorney General Daniel Cameron seeks a metaphorical feather in his cap relating to lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies.
In addition to the workforce statistics, Beshear and Cameron will face off on a slew of issues including public safety and drugs.
Beshear is the former state Attorney General, and the Kentucky Democratic Party wants to remind Kentuckians that some of the good news coming from the office recently originated with the current governor – and not current Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
“It is alarming that the attorney general doesn’t seem to know how lawsuits work. Andy Beshear filed and argued these cases against opioid companies, and they were settled after he became governor,” said Kentucky Democratic Party spokesperson Anna Breedlove. “Cameron is once again claiming credit for the work of others. While Andy Beshear has worked hard as both governor and attorney general to hold opioid companies accountable and lower overdose deaths for the first time since 2018, Daniel Cameron is more focused on using this crisis to try to add another title to his resume.”
Kentuckians go to the polls on Nov. 7.
